


The Dog

by sobefarrington



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Kozik - Freeform, Sons Of Anarchy - Freeform, The Dog - Freeform, Tig Trager - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobefarrington/pseuds/sobefarrington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm in love with Tig. He's an amazing character. And what I love best about him is that he doesn't show his emotions. So when something does get to him, you know it's important. <br/>The photo of the dog just tore me to pieces.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. No Worries

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with Tig. He's an amazing character. And what I love best about him is that he doesn't show his emotions. So when something does get to him, you know it's important.   
> The photo of the dog just tore me to pieces.

Tig had gone on a run. It was a favor to Clay, and he wouldn’t be gone more than two days, but he still needed someone to take care of his beloved mutt.

Herman would, he knew Herman would.

Herman was his best friend, his roommate. Herman loved Tig’s dog almost as much as Tig did. He wouldn’t let his buddy down.

”Course Tig, I wouldn’t let my best buddy down. I’ll take care of her. No worries.”

Tig smiled and hugged his brother, their leather cuts slapping together in the muggy heat of the mid-morning.

The dog was panting when Tig knelt down to pet her head, but she smiled and jumped for him still, licking his face with a fury.

“Alright alright. I love you too MuttMutt. See ya in a few days. Thanks Kozick.” Tig repeated his appreciation for his friend.

“No worries man.”

No worries.


	2. The Perfect Family

The day had been long, Tig returning from the club late. He’d been on a run with Clay the last few days. Something he couldn’t talk about. Not that Kozik was the type to butt in, but he did wonder. Tig and Clay went back farther than he and Tig did. Kozik didn’t question their friendship, he was curious about the secrecy. 

Because Tig never told him what it was Clay needed him for when he called at odd times of the day and night. Kozik knew Tig was loyal. Diehard Loyal. To the club, to Clay, to him. 

And to Missy.

Their beloved pooch, who was spending the night on the couch with Kozik, a bowl of popcorn and a Mythbusters marathon.

Kozik fed himself small helpings of the microwave treat he usually shared with his best friend, serving out alternate heaping handfuls to the furry friend keeping him from being lonely that – and so many others – night. 

Missy rested her head on Kozik’s lap, looking up at the man longingly. Her brown eyes conveying the sadness he felt when Tig wasn’t sharing a moment with him.

Tig and Kozik had been together for some time. They kept it from the club, for both their sakes, and kept up the ruse of being best friends (which they were) and roommates (which they also were), leaving out the bits about being bedmates as well. 

Kozik thought about it as Missy begged for another treat. It had been at least five years since they started secretly seeing each other. It was about the same time as Tig rescues   
Missy from the puppy mill Hale had discovered and closed down. Missy was one of the lucky ones.

Kozik had never seen a man’s heart break so completely as he did the day they rode past the boarded up house on the highway.

Hale has his truck out, lights flashing, and a couple of back-up cruisers blocking most of the entrance. The Humane Society vans were there, at least three of them. Tig had been meaning to talk to Hale for a few days – Club business for Clay, he claimed at the time – and Kozik, who had joined him for their drive up the PCH, rode through the barricade with his buddy to confront Hale.

They had never imagined the scene they were throwing themselves into.

Dogs of all ages. New born pups, to pups not quite born yet, to dogs so old and sick that any compassionate person would have long since put them out of their misery. Dogs maimed and tortured, living in their own filth. Starved and abused and crying in pain. Just longing for someone to love them.

Kozik saw the massacre and turned his head in disgust. And Tig cried.

Tig cried like no man should be seen crying.

He asked Hale through his broken tears what they were doing with the ones that were still alive. Hale didn’t have much in the way of a reply, as the Humane Society were in charge of which dogs were put down and which were worth saving. Kozik noticed how Tig clutched his chest at the thought of an animal being ‘not worth saving’. 

He was preparing to yell at the Animal Social Services when he felt something plop on his boot and looked down.

A tiny dog, so underweight and malnourished that he could only distinguish it as alive because of it’s not being there moments earlier, had come to rest atop his leather shoe. 

She breathed, if barely, struggling to stand up again, exhausted at the feat she had accomplished.

Tig bent down and cradled the tiny animal in his hands, lifting it to his chest. He could feel her breath against him, her little lungs fighting to continue on. The nervous excitement the dog unleashed at being held by loving hands was not lost on Tig. She used all the energy her little body could muster up to wag her tail and pant. Her body shook from malnourishment and fear. She had fleas and bite marks, as if some of the bigger dogs had tried to take a chunk of her. Tig could feel her ribs through her matted patches of fur and scabs. He tucked the dog under his chin, whispering to her.

The little pup turned her head to lick Tig’s chin and he smiled. The tears slowly started to dry up as a woman in a Dog Police uniform approached them.

“I’m sorry sir, but I’m going to have to take that animal from you.”

Tig turned a furious face to the woman, almost in slow motion, his eyes burning a hole through her skull upon laying eyes on her.

“YOU CAN’T HAVE HER! YOU’RE NOT KILLING HER! THIS IS MY DOG! MY DOG!!! “

Hale took a step between the woman and Tig as he started to move towards her. Kozik approached his friend slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder. The little dog yapped at the lady, who was now in fear for her own life, and Tig nearly attacked Kozik.

“C’mon. Let’s go Tig.”

“They can’t have my dog man. I’m not letting them kill my dog.”

Tig was in a state, his eyes still wide and his comments incoherent. He wasn’t leaving without the dog. 

The woman had vanished, running away at the first chance. Hale just nodded in approval. 

Not that his opinion mattered.

Tig wasn’t leaving without the dog.

“We’re taking the dog Tig. Now let’s go.”

Kozik had to lead Tig from the house and convince him that he could drive his bike with the dog zipped up in his jacket for the half mile to the vet’s office safely.

Now the dog, named Missy before they made it TO the vet’s office, was looking at her co-owner longingly, missing the man who rescued her.

“I know Miss.” Kozik started. “I miss him too.”

It was more than an hour later when Tig did make his presence known, arriving in time to see Adam and Jamie blow up a cement truck… again.

Tig kicked his boots off as the overweight mutt ran for the door to knock him over.

“C’mon Missy. At least let me get my fucken boots off.”

Tig rubbed the top of her head as the dog jumped to lick his chin. Kozik watched at the two played for a moment, thinking about what Missy life would be like if Tig hadn’t stopped to talk to Hale that day.

It wouldn’t.

A few weeks after the fact, Kozik ran into Hale at the barber’s. He inquired about the rest of the dogs that were found that day and Hale gave him the sad news. 

None of them had been saved.

Except Missy.

 

They agreed never to tell Tig about it, and Kozik convinced Hale never to mention how Tig wept at the sight of those animals.

Tig sat down in the middle of the couch, Kozik having to remove his legs for his other half to take a seat before resting his feet once more on Tig’s lap. 

Instinctively, Missy jumped up to claim the third cushion, in her designated spot on the other side of the only man to see her potential.

Tig weaved one hand around Kozik’s legs, massaging his one foot as he normally did, needing the little bit of human contact. The other hand was wrapped around his dog, hugging her close while ruffling her silky coat.

Kozik groaned with delight, Tig smiled and Missy wagged her tail.

The perfect family.


	3. What's In A Name

Missy started to gain her strength slowly, with Tig watching her progress like a Hawk watches over its unhatched babies. Kozik had, in that short time, moved in with Tig and his two bedroom apartment on the south side of town. Their friendship had grown stronger since they first rolled up on the puppy mill six months earlier. And they bonded over the little pup.

They really bonded.

Kozik had accompanied Tig to all of the vets appointments, and kept him sane while he worried about her overnight stays and the surgeries to repair the parts of her that wouldn’t heal on their own.

He recalled the day Tig decided on her name. While they had stopped for burgers on their way to picking the dog up and taking her home for the first time. 

She was two months old, the vet told them. She might have been three weeks when they found her, but it was hard to tell considering the state she was in. She had to stay at the animal hospital. The doctors there were panicked about her condition, and rightly so, they decided to keep her until she was healthy enough to be home. Her new home.

They had asked Tig that day what her name was, and he very blankly told them she didn’t have one yet. They spent the time in between calling her “Girl” and “Lady” and “Sweety”, all the while waiting for Tig to come up with a permanent name for the small dog.  
Kozik could tell Tig was putting it off on purpose. As if naming the dog was an omen. He waited and waited until the day he was told she would be going home.

“Have you decided on a name yet Alex?” the vet asked him and he signed the release papers and ran his credit card through for the bill.

“Missy.”

No one questioned it. Probably for the best. Tig put MISSY in the box that had been left blank all those weeks and the receptionist typed the name into the file on the computer. 

Kozik waited until they were home before he asked his friend.

“Missy?”

The dog ignored him as Tig turned.

“What’s wrong with Missy?” 

The dog looked.

“Nothing wrong with it. Just curious as to why.”

Tig was silent, and turned his attention back to the direction of the kitchen, his mind now focused on the beer in the fridge.

He took two, handing one to Kozik as he passed. Tig took a seat on the couch and helped the small dog up onto the seat next to him, on his right. He pet the mutt while chugging a mouthful of his Coors. Kozik rested himself in the empty space on Tig’s left, pulling each of his boots off with the other foot before putting his sore feet on the table in front of him, flexing his toes back and forth. 

Tig hunted for something to watch, resting on a station that was airing Easy Rider. 

Kozik looked over to him once or twice, trying to find something in Tig’s expression to lead him towards why he wouldn’t answer his question, but his eyes were vacant, and his expression was fighting him to not let on.

Tig hid it well, the pain that came with the question. No one really knew of Tig’s past, before he joined the club. The man that was so hard and so deranged. No one knew of the family he once had. The one that was taken from him. The daughter that once was, but was no more. The girl who’s name now rested with an animal. Her name now living with a life resurrected. Missy.


	4. Four Years

Missy ran for the ball once more.

It was a blustery sunny day in Charming, the kind of morning that gave the town it’s name. 

Missy returned with the ball and dropped it at her owner’s feet.

Tig picked it up and threw it again as Kozik returned with the coffee.

He handed a paper cup to his other half, keeping the one in his left hand for himself.

“Thanks babe.” Tig replied nonchalantly, having already taken note that no one was in the park at that hour.

Tig threw the ball again, and Missy ran for it.

“She’s doing better.”

Kozik noticed how Missy ran, in a gliding motion, almost as if she hovered over the ground. She ran like most dogs, which was something the vets said she’d never be able to do. At every step, every moment of every day, she exceeded expectation and proved everyone who ever said she wasn’t worth saving wrong.

She made Tig proud, every day. That she had the will and determination to try.

Missy returned again with the ball. She sat and held it in her mouth, waiting for Tig to retrieve it.

“She’s doing amazing. Aren’t ya Missy?”

The second part of Tig’s remark was directed towards the dog, her tail wagging back and forth in a frenzy. The sound of Tig’s voice getting her riled up.

Missy was four years old now. Four years of living with Kozik and Tig. Four years of tail wagging, ball throwing, running and chasing fun. Four years everyone said she wouldn’t have. Four years she would have if it weren’t for Tig.

Tig threw the ball with a grin spreading across his face.

Missy ran for it once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I'm sorry this isn't finished. But if you've seen the show you kinda know where this is going to go. Maybe it's for the best that it's not finished.


	5. Nightswimming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where it gets sad

Tig sat behind the wheel of the pickup, still a bit uncomfortable at not being on his Harley. The night traffic threw him off even more, the slow crawl matching the speed of the speckling rain perfectly.

The pitter-patter of precipitation continued to fill the windshield as the Ford dipped into a pothole. A gentle splash cleaned the wheel well as the light from the lamppost ghosted over the vehicle. It was an orange-yellow tint and fairly dim, but it caught the picture Tig had stored on the dash all the same, just as it caught Tig’s eye.

The snapshot of him and his precious Missy cuddled on the couch. The shot taken in candid and secret by Tig’s then friend and boyfriend Kozik. Taken at a time when they were all happy, and content… and alive.

He wouldn’t have been able to stop it if he tried. The tears, that is. Though in hindsight he realized he couldn’t have prevented his beloved pooch’s death, he might have stopped himself from blaming it all on Kozik and storming out of their shared apartment. But Tig had always seen his relationship with Kozik as dependant on Missy. With the dog, there was nothing.

Missy had been old, living to a ripe age of fourteen. The vets and specialists she’d frequented in her lifetime were all amazed she’d held out as long as she had, each in turn naming one or more conditions and ailments that would have stopped any other dog in its tracks. But not Missy. 

Missy was as tough as nails. A Sons dog through and through. Tig wasn’t surprised at all that she kept defying the odds.

He was, however, shocked and saddened by his beloved’s death.

Or more so how she chose to go. A dog so devoted, so loving and so caring, waited until she was alone to let her last breath escape her.

Which is why he blamed the dog’s death on Kozik. Had he not left her alone that day, had he been there with her, she might have lived. Tig might not have received the phone call telling him to hurry home. He wouldn’t have found his dog lying under an old blanket on her spot on the couch. As if she had been waiting for him, missing him, needing him. 

And he wasn’t there for her.

And he wasn’t there for her.

The rain picked up in speed as his tears did, pouring down on the windshield and his cheeks.

Missy was gone, and it left a void. A big, gaping, fucking hole in his chest. So big it couldn’t be measured. So consuming it ate at his soul. It was him, eclipsing the dark spot of his falling out with Kozik, surpassing any and all other emotion he would have felt.

Nothing could ever replace her. No other dog, no other relationship. No one would ever make him feel the kind of unquestionable love Missy had. Missy was his everything. Missy was his Home.

Tig was without his Home.

The rain pounded harder as the tears overcame him. Tig pulled the truck over onto the shoulder as the congestion of traffic eased ahead. Vehicles started to pass him as he pressed a hand to his heart. The physical pain pounded as the black hole expanded. Tig wept without control, without fear of being caught. Nothing could have hurt him more.

He stayed there for hours, barely noticing the headlights rolling over him as he sunk further into his own sorrow. Barely aware of his own existence and wishing for his own death, wishing for anything to bring him closer to Missy once more.


End file.
